Ride or Die
by CommChatter
Summary: Sometimes, having his soul on the outside to act as his conscience was inconvenient, because while Dom was happy to live in a state of denial in most cases, Sezja had the annoying habit of smacking him with the things that are bothering him the most. Rated for occasional swearing and canonical violence.


Dominic Toretto- Wolf- Sezja

Brian O'Connor- German Shepherd- Mythri

Mia Toretto- Maine Coon- Abia

Vince- Red Tailed Hawk- Adrasteia

Letty- Red Fox- Tyree

Leon- Crow- unnamed

Jesse- Jack Russell Terrier- unnamed

F&F

Dom's fourteen when Sezja settles. Everyone talks and stares pointedly at her, because wolves… wolves are the dæmons of serial killers and criminals, and the main antagonists of every action movie Dom has ever seen. They're not the dæmons of well-adjusted teenagers with a stable home life and an adoring little sister.

Dom pretends not to notice the stares, and Sezja pretends not to notice that he notices. They don't talk for almost a week, and it's not until Mia and Abia come to them that Dom realizes that everyone's noticed their disjointed relationship.

"She's not bad," Mia, nine years old and so sure of herself, says.

"What?" Dom asks, abandoning his homework- it's not like he was paying any attention to it anyway.

"Sezja." Abia says, leaping from Mia's shoulder as a sparrow and landing as a wolf himself. He's smaller than Sezja, and white to her gray and black. They curl up together under the table.

Mia digs through her backpack and emerges with a thick hard cover book, and Dom laughs softly to himself. The title that Dom reads upside down is _Dæmonology_ , and Mia flips through half the book before she finds the page she's looking for. Giving Dom a significant look, she reads aloud: "Wolf dæmons, while negatively associated with criminals, are also the dæmons of people with strong family connections." Mia looks up. "There's more, but I figured that was the most important part."

Abe leapt onto the table as a gray house cat, and butted his head against Mia's hand, she petted him absently. Sezja crawled out from under the table to push her nose into Dom's hand, and he buries his fingers in the thick fur around her neck before he slides off his chair and hugs Sezja hard.

Vince's Adrasteia settles as a Red Tailed Hawk six months later, and Letty's Tyree settles as a Red Fox a month after that. Mia's Abia settles as a large, gray Maine Coon the day she turns fifteen.

Even though Sezja could no longer help Dom work on the engines like before, when she could take the form of a monkey, they spent more time than ever in the garage.

Tragedy strikes, of course, and Dom and Mia's father dies in a stock car race, and Dom nearly beats the man responsible to death- they only stop because the streams of gold Dust coming off the man's Rottweiler dæmon snaps Sezja out of her bloodlust induced rage.

They spend two years in Lompoc, Dom's size and Sezja's form their only defense and deterrent against unwanted attention. After they're paroled, they're banned from stock car racing and they go home to LA. That's when they start street racing for more than just the adrenaline rush- Mia's café and tiny grocery store and Dom's garage, which Letty and Vince kept running while they were gone, don't pay all the bills or pay for the upgrades Dom does to his car. Somewhere along the way, they pick up Leon and his crow dæmon, and Jesse and his hyperactive Jack Russell Terrier.

It's Dom who first suggests the tractor trailer heists.

Brian Spilner and his German Shepherd dæmon are the only ones that don't flinch when they see Sezja. Granted, Dom's just hauled him off Vince, and shoved Vince at Leon, whose crow dæmon heckled Adrasteia away, but Spilner just pushes himself upright against the car, and his dæmon is still snarling at Addie. The Buster stands his ground as Dom advances, though the car at his back may be the reason. His German Shepherd dæmon is taller than Sezja, and leaner too, but she doesn't back down from the more muscular and compact wolf.

Dom takes Spilner's wallet. "Brian Earl Spilner." he reads off. "Sounds like a serial killer's name. That what you are?"

 _("No, man." Spilner says, dæmon bristling at the suggestion._

" _You work for Harry?" Dom asks, already knowing the answer. At Spilner's nod, Dom continues. "You just got fired.")_

Spilner shows up at the street race that night, and for all that it's obvious the Buster is new to the scene, that race is the closest Dom and Sezja have come to losing a race in a long time, damage to the kid's car notwithstanding.

 _(What are you grinning at?" Dom asks._

 _"Dude, I almost had you." Spilner's grinning widely, d_ æ _mon standing beside him, ears and tail up.)_

Then Leon's shout of "Shit! Cops! Cops!" sends everyone scattering in different directions.

Dom and Sezja leave the car in a parking garage and start walking. The cop car that goes by locks its brakes and skids on the road before turning around, and the cop calls Dom by name, but then the Buster is there, shoving the passenger side door open. "Get in!"

Dom and Sezja do without even hesitating.

They're working their way back to Dom's house when Johnny Tran, his cousin Lance and half a dozen others ride up on motorcycles and point automatic guns at them. In the cramped, almost nonexistent back seat, Sezja groans and Spilner's dæmon gives her a look that Sezja ignores.

Johnny Tran has a scorpion perched on his shoulder, and Lance has a golden monkey half hanging off his back. Threats are made, words said, and Tran buzzes off.

Spilner is moving to get back in the car when Tran and Lance come back and shoot the car full of bullets. Spilner and Dom dive for cover, their dæmons following as the bullets fly. When they stand back up, the car is on fire, and it's Sezja's shriek of "NOS!" that has Dom and Spilner diving for cover again as the NOS canisters detonate, lifting the car feet off the ground and sending up a green mushroom cloud. Spilner's dæmon droops, tail falling as she surveys the wreckage.

"Cops will be here soon." Dom says.

As they start the hike back to the house, Spilner's dæmon finally speaks. "What was that about?"

Dom shrugs. "Business deal gone sour."

"And you slept with his sister." Sezja says helpfully. Spilner's dæmon scoffs and shakes her head.

Spilner manages to hail a cab two miles later, and the four of them cram into the back seat, arms and shoulders pressed together, dæmons between their legs. The cabbie's squirrel dæmon stares at them through the plexiglass divider, tail twitching. The ride is awkward and silent, and Spilner's dæmon contents herself by making faces at the cabbie's squirrel until the other dæmon rolls her eyes and hops off the man's shoulder into the passenger seat. Sezja chuckles deep in her throat, and Spilner's dæmon bares her teeth in a grin.

There's a party going on at the house, and Dom storms through like and impending hurricane, Sezja preceding him, snarling at Leon's crow dæmon and snapping at Adrasteia as Vince shouts, "Why'd you bring the Buster here?"

The resulting explosion has those nearest scrambling for cover, and Letty drags Dom away, up the stairs for a massage. Dom stops on the stairs, Letty hanging off him and Sezja and Tyree two stairs above them.

"You owe me a ten second car." He tells the Buster, and Tyree, Letty's red fox dæmon, laughs.

Later, Spilner shows up with a wrecked Toyota Supra, his dæmon- Mythri, Sezja had told Dom- bouncing gleefully at his side. Jesse and his dæmon positively salivate over the car's wrecked engine, and by the time they finish, Mia smiles at Brian, and Abia bares his teeth in a smile.

"Dom owns you now." Abia informs them, sitting on top of a car's hood and washing one paw unconcernedly, tail twitching.

There's something about Spilner and his German Shepherd dæmon. Sezja takes to them immediately, in a way that she only does Mia's Abe. It only seems natural that they be there for the barbeque. Vince storms off, Adrasteia swooping in front of him (he'll be back later, Dom knows. Vince has to eat sometime), but Mythri tolerates Jesse's Jack Russell Terrier, and they slot into Dom and Sezja's family like they've always been there.

Brian and Mia plan a date, and from the way Abia purrs and primps himself, they're happy. So, while Dom and Brian work on the Supra, Mythri and Sezja sprawled in the shade of another car, Dom makes Brian (and when did he become Brian?) a promise. "You break her heart, and I'll break your neck."

The date goes well, so Dom doesn't kill Brian, and on the Supra's first drive after being rebuilt, they smoke a black Ferrari. If Dom had been paying attention to Mythri at the diner, he would have seen her shift slightly at Brian's request to get in on Dom's side jobs. But he doesn't, and instead gives Brian directions to Race Wars.

Dom and Vince catch Brian as he's leaving Hector's garage.

"He's a cop." Vince growls, shotgun in the Buster's face, and Adrasteia bobs her head in a nod of agreement from her perch. Sezja drops Mythri as she stirs, the dæmon is just as stunned as her human is from that blow to the head.

"Brian," Dom says. "Now is a time when you want to be very clear on what you're saying." Sezja looms over Mythri, teeth bared in a snarl backing Dom up.

Brian spins a bullshit answer, Mythri standing beside him, has her head down, tail low, the picture of guilt. Dom doesn't call them on it. Instead, they go to the Tran's garage. Jesse drops them off, and it's a trick getting Mythri and Sezja up on the roof and down through the skylight, but they manage it, and they find three cars missing their engines.

Before they can poke around much, Jesse calls, and they barely have time to hide before Johnny and Lance come in, holding a man Dom recognizes as Ted Gassner at gunpoint.

Tran demands the same thing Vince had earlier: "Where are the cars' engines?" Lance's monkey dæmon leaps off his shoulder and grabs Gassner's duck dæmon by her neck as Johnny pours oil down his throat.

Ducked down next to Dom, Brian and Mythri shift anxiously, Mythri gives an aborted growl- she glares at Sezja, who had nipped her tail. "Quiet." The other dæmon whispers. After Johnny and Lance leave, they get the hell out, Vince and Adrasteia first, Brian next with Mythri draped over his shoulders, then Dom and Sezja last.

The next day is Race Wars, and Dom doesn't see Brian right away, but he does watch Letty and Tyree smoke a cocky idiot and his pit bull dæmon. Then Jesse loses his race against Johnny Tran, and Dom's day goes downhill fast. Jesse bolts with his (Tran's) car, and Tran storms over to Dom, scorpion dæmon shifting restlessly on his shoulder, tail and stinger poised. Sezja doesn't know what type of scorpion she is, but with her pincers as small as they are, Sezja tells Dom, all that Tran's dæmon needs is to sting her prey to kill them.

But they're not on Tran's block any more, and Dom tells him that, Sezja standing beside him, fur along her back raised, lips pulled back to show her fangs. Dom has every intention of just walking away and leaving Tran to his little tantrum, but Tran's next statement is one that Dom cannot, and will not let go.

"The FBI raided my home!" Tran shouts, as good as accusing Dom of setting the FBI on him, and Dom sees red. The security guards do their best to pull Dom off Tran, and their dæmons do their best to get Sezja under control, but the bulldog and grey hound don't have the strength to best her. Leon and Vince bull through the gathered crowd and grab Dom by the arms, pull him back, and then Mythri appears, she grabs Sezja by the scruff of her neck, and Sezja spins on her, only to be met with a powerful shoulder block that knocks the wolf dæmon back several feet.

Dom's too focused on Tran to really see the dæmons' confrontation, and Dom shouts at Tran and his retreating goons, "I didn't narc on nobody!"

F&F

That night Dom gets a call from his informant, and, even without Jesse, they suit up. Mia's clutching Abia close to her chest as she begs Dom not to go, eyes shining with tears she won't shed- until they're gone anyway, Sezja whispers, and Dom gives her a glare. Sometimes, having his soul on the outside to act as his conscience was inconvenient, because while Dom was happy to live in a state of denial in most cases, Sezja had the annoying habit of smacking him with the things that are bothering him the most.

They roll out, Dom, Letty, Vince and Leon. They drive out to the warehouse where they've been keeping their Honda Civics.

"This doesn't feel right." Letty says. Tyree nods his agreement. "We shouldn't be doing this without Jesse."

Adrasteia and Leon's crow are shifting uncomfortably on their humans' shoulders, but Leon and Vince don't say anything, and neither do the dæmons, but they make it clear in their own way that they agree with Letty and Tyree. But they drive out anyway, Dom and Vince in the lead car, Sezja sitting in the back, Adrasteia perched on the back of Vince's seat as he worked on the harpoon he would need to enter a moving tractor trailer.

The job goes bad almost from the start. The trucker has a shotgun, but Vince doesn't see it, and he and Adrasteia don't hear Dom and Sezja shouting for them to get back in the car. Their first indication that something is wrong comes when the gun is pointed at them through the truck's passenger side windshield, and _Vince is attached to the_ _truck_ , and Adrasteia is swooping down to avoid the buckshot, and she's doing her best to free him, but she can't get close enough without bashing her wings against the grill of the truck or Vince.

Dom's day gets worse, because the truck clips Letty's bumper as she tries to draw the trucker's attention off Vince, and Dom can only watch helplessly as her car rolls off into the brush. He sees a flash of red hit the windshield, and prays that Tyree won't be ejected from the car. Leon falls back to help Letty, and Dom steps on the gas. Steam erupts from under the Civic's hood as buckshot tears through it, and Sezja howls as the car loses power and Dom has to wrestle it to the edge of the highway.

"Dom, look." Sezja says, and Dom does, but all he sees is an orange blur, and he knows that it's Spilner just by the way the car is being driven.

Brian's Supra is cramped. That's one of the first things that Mia thinks as she sits in the passenger seat, Abia sitting rigidly in her lap, his fur standing on end. The car was only really built for one person and a large dæmon, not two adults and two large dæmons. Mythri had crammed herself behind Brian in the small back seat that was built for dæmons. Abia scrambles into the back with Mythri as Brian knocks the roof out, then Brian and Mia trade places as they get to the truck. Vince is hanging off the passenger side of the truck, and the cable is wrapped around his arm, blood running freely, and a fainting Adrasteia nestled against his chest.

Brian leaps the distance between the Supra and the truck, and behind Mia, Mythri whines softly as the distance between the dæmon and her human counterpart is stretched farther than any connection should be.

Brian frees Vince's arm from the cable, and the other man almost falls into the Supra as Mia maneuvers it closer. The truck swerves and Brian ducks and cringes as the trucker fires at him through the window at the bottom of the door. Mia guides the car closer, and Brian takes a flying leap onto the car's hood. In the back seat, Mythri gave a sigh of relief.

When Dom, Leon, and Letty pull up next to Brian's car, Dom and Sezja are out and covering the ground between them and Brian and Mia, who are both crouched over Vince's prone form. Mythri and Abia are huddled over Adrasteia, who's leaking golden Dust everywhere as Brian and Mia do their best to stop the blood flowing from Vince's arm. Brian makes a crude tourniquet with his belt and hands Vince's arm to Mia, who keeps it elevated as he steps back, pulling out his cell phone.

Dom stares, feeling his blood pound in his ears as he hears Brian's side of the conversation. His name isn't Spilner, it's O'Connor and he's a cop. _A cop._ Sezja snarled at Mythri as the other dæmon looked up at her from her place on the ground, curled around Addie. Mythri doesn't move as Sezja advances, and then the medevac helicopter is there, and paramedics rush to Vince, and their dæmons to Adrasteia. One, an orangutan, gathers her into his arms and places her in a plexiglass box that his fellow gorilla dæmon had been carrying. It was well padded, and it was designed to keep the injured dæmon's Dust from dispersing into the wind if the dæmon's human did flatline. There was more of a chance that the dæmon would reform that way. Then the helicopter takes off, taking Vince and Adrasteia with it, leaving Brian and Mythri, bloodstained and looking miserable.

Dom glares, Sezja snarls and they stalk away, back to the last remaining Civic. Mia and Abia are caught in the middle. They hesitate, looking back and forth between Brian and Dom until Dom makes the decision for them. Leon guns the engine and they tear off back to Los Angeles, because they still have to find Jesse before Johnny Tran does.

Dom has a shotgun in his hands when Brian roars up, and the kid's out of the car with his service weapon trained on Dom, telling him to drop the weapon and he won't call the cops. Like the kid isn't a cop. In any other circumstances, Dom would have laughed in Brian's face, but now, he has to find Jesse before the kid ends up dead like Vince almost did.

But then it doesn't matter anymore, because Jesse's white Jetta screeches to a stop on the curb, and the kid is out of the car, terrier dæmon sprinting ahead of him, running in circles around Jesse as they get closer.

"God Dom, I'm sorry. I panicked." Jesse says, eyes wide and terrified.

Before Dom can say anything, Sezja and Mythri cock their head in unison, and Dom and Brian hear the motorcycles too, and time seems to stand still as Johnny Tran and Lance buzz by, and bullets are flying. Dom and Brian dive for cover, but Jesse stands still, staring straight ahead, and his dæmon turns, "Sezja-" she says, and explodes into golden Dust, beautiful and horrifying in equal measure, and Sezja howls as Jesse collapses like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

Dimly, like he's under water, Dom can hear Mia screaming, and he turns, sees Brian and Mythri leaping back into the Supra, speeding off after the fleeing motorcycles, and Dom knows what he has to do. Sezja leads the way to the garage and the beast within. The Charger roars out and down the driveway, and any fear Dom had harbored of his dad's old monster is gone as he speeds off after Jesse's killers.

Dom runs Lance off the road, and he crests the hill in time to see Brian crouched over Tran, blood running freely from a wound in his side. Brian looks up when he hears the Charger's engine, and he barks at another driver, probably telling them to call 911, before he and Mythri sprint back to the car. They follow Dom to a stoplight, and pull up next to him.

 _("It's a quarter mile from here to the tracks." Dom tells them. "When the lights change, I'm going."_

" _There's a train coming." Sezja murmurs, then she turns to look at Dom, dark brown eyes loving and understanding. "Ride or die, right Dom?")_

Before Dom can answer, the light turns green, and he floors it, the Charger's engine putting out so much power that the front end briefly lifts off the ground before it crashes down, and they pull ahead of Brian, who has to hit the NOS just to keep pace. They cross the tracks a split second before the train hits them, and Dom hears Brian's whoop over the rush of air and blood in his ears. Brian hadn't expected to survive that run either, Dom realizes.

Then there's a truck in front of him, and all Dom has time to think is _"This is really going to hurt."_ And then the Charger hits it at an angle and they're launched into the air, flipping over, and the car lands on its roof. When Dom comes to his senses, he's still in the car, and Sezja is sprawled on the cracked windshield. Laboriously, Dom hauls himself out of the Charger's destroyed window, and Sezja follows a second later, army crawling out. Brian and Mythri meet them outside the wreckage, and they hear sirens in the distance.

"Brian." Mythri says softly. Brian nods and offers Dom the keys to the Supra.

Dom hesitates, then he reaches out and takes them. "Why?" Sezja asks, studying the other dæmon.

"We owe you a ten second car." Mythri said. Brian nods in agreement.

Dom and Sezja hesitate again, but the sirens are getting closer, and they bolt to the car, and speed away. Dom's last glimpse of Brian O'Connor and his dæmon is of the two of them jogging down the road, away from the wreck.

F&F

Reviews are awesome. Let me know what you think, please!

-CommChatter


End file.
